How to implement a minimum price for alcohol

Pete posted earlier on the Prime Minister’s latest intervention on the issue of problem drinking. The new proposals — like a greater police presence in A&Es, and ‘drunk tanks’, special units where drunks are taken to sober up — are sensible enough, but seem small relative to the scale of the supposed problem, and focus on peripheral (though important) side-effects, rather than the core of the issue. The ‘big idea’ seems to be missing, even though the Conservatives have been flirting with it for some years, is a minimum unit price (MUP) for alcohol: far more controversial, but potentially far more effective.

The last Labour government, in which I was an adviser, looked at this idea in some depth. I was attracted to it, but believed we should pursue the same objective in a different way: namely, by fixing an effective MUP through increases in alcohol duty (together with a ban on selling alcohol below the level of duty).